FRANK LLOYD WRI

ARCHITECT OF LAND
CONTI;; T5 ~RAH( LLOYD WRIGIH QUARHRLY
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Iumme< 2000

P"""hed by The Frank Lloyd Wright F",ndatiotl

T,aliesin \'('l~[. Xott~:Ile. AZ 85"261

Editor: Suzette Lucas

Assislanl Editor: Dan Bitenc
CopycdilOr: Alice Urban
Designer: Roberl Miller

Board of Trustees
1I,Imilr0l1 .\IcRJ.c Ill. Chairman. ParaJi!le Valle}', AZ
Dr.11. :'\ichom .\Iul1M' III. (H) and Pre.ident
EHi \laria C'-asey. 5.;ott~al('. AZ
E. Thomas Case}", Scon~.iJle, A7
David E. Dodge, xon.,Jale, AZ
Ga~ K. Herbc~er. Paradise \·all~-. AZ
Jeanne Lind Herberger. PdT"dj..e \'all~-. AZ
Da\"id O. Justi..:e. Oak Park. IL
Ch.ule'S \ lontooth. Spring GrCl.'n. \\1
\lmen-a Houslon ~Ionroorh. xon'>d.tle. AZ
George A. '-:el5Oo, \ ladi~n. \'('1
Stephen ~cllliin. )con,Jalc, AZ
Introduction ......................•.... 3 Scon William 1\'Tcr<.cn. Chicago. IL
Hlrold Price, I.aguna Iku:h. CA
Arnold Roy, ScOTbd,llc, AZ
Joan Smith, Washington, D.C.
Frank Lloyd Wright: Architect of Landscape
Elke Vormfeldc, Scomdale, A7
Eric Lloyd Wright, i\lalihu. CA

by Anne \Vhislol1 Spirn 4 Taliesin (OUIK~

1braId Priet". (hailTJl;]n, LlgUIlJ Beach. CA
Aaron G. Grttn. San Franl"i!ol:o, CA
fJ",b<1h \\"cighr l'Wo'hom. CnIo<ado Springs. CO
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation News 26 Hamilmn \kRae. Paradi~ Valle". AZ
Thomas .\lonaghan. Ann Arbor, .\11
.\Iichael Riddle, xon~le, AZ
Donald Schaberg, Ol..emCh, \1I
Books ...............•.•.•.................................. 27
Vernon Swabad.:, Ph(lCnix. AZ
Edg;H Tafd. K'ew Yorl... 'Y
.\Iae Sue Taltey, \'('a~hinglOn. D.C.
Taliesin Architects 28 Virginia Ullm,m, Phot:nix, AZ

Suzette Lucas, Dircrtor of blernal Affairs

Wright Sites/Evenrs Information 30 The Frank I,loyd \VngIJI QUi/rlcrly

i~ published fOllr times a yeJr
in J.muary, April, July and O..:roOcr.

COVER PHOTO: Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin, 1993. The Birdwalk-a long, The QU.1rter/y is a member benefit for the
foundation \ suppan group~,
narrow protruding balcony added to the living room porch in 1953-provides
The Frank lloyd \,("right A~wciJtion
dramatic views of the Toties;" estate. Photo © Paul Rocheleau. Photo, opposite The Frank Lloyd Wriv,ht niet)"
page, © Roger Straus Ill, from the soon-to-he-released book, \'(fright on \'Qright.
To find OUI more about rnem~ip mot.tCl;

The Fronk Lloyd Wright Foundatiotl

h"Tema[ AffJi"" Ottir.:e
Talit~in Wc~t
Sr.:onsdate. AZ 8-'2.61-4430
(480, 860-1700
www.frJnklloydwright.org

02000 The Frank [.lord Wright hlllndJtion

• A K L L o

Altbol/gh tlJe /tallle Taliesill is most

often associated with Ibe personal resi-
dence of I-rank Lloyd Wright. the Ie""
also aPIJlies to the entire 600-acre
/JYo/Jerty located in tlJe Jones Valley
"car prmg Green, Wlisco1lsm. Other
bmld",gs located Oil the estate dre
IIl"side Home School. MIdway J~arm.
Tau-y-dcrI, and the Romeo and }lIltet
\Vi"d",iII. In addtimu to the mam resi-
dence (pIctured abol't! III a 1998 photo)
the other bllildiugs, landsClIpcd grounds,
roads, dm1l, tl1td I)oud are all pari 0/
Wright's OlIL.."dlll1rdnlC'clumJ composf/ioll.
Photo <D Ro!Wr StrtlliS 1/1. (Inset) Frank
Lloyd \'(Iright and his IVlfe, OlgivlIfl1lo,
at Taliesin dlfring the 19)"05. Pho/v
cOllrtcsy Frank J./oyd \VriMht Archives.
 D w
8)/ Anne Whiston Spim
rn
rirings, dr~l\vings, and
builr work all resrify ro
Frank Lloyd Wrighr's
lifelong passion for
nature and l:111dscapc. He wrOte
dozens of essays on rhe subject, morc
than any other architect, living or
dead. lie was a keen observer of
llatur:t1 form and :Ill experienced
architect of lal1dsc<lpe. Hundreds of
drawings display his inreresr and
insight: rhododendron and pine cap-
I G
cured in :l few pencil strokes, plans
covered with derailed nores on planr-
ing and grading, sections showing
deft modifications to terrain. Like
the Japanese landscapes he admired,
some of Wright's greatest works
were large cOlnpositions of buildings
and gardens, roads and waterways,
fields and groves.
Despite the centrality of nature
and landscape ro Wrighr's life and
work, rhere is lirrk written on his
landscape composirions, cenainly no
comprehensive OJ' definitive treat-
T ••
II
mcnt, and few seminal works, with
the result that his landscape compo-
sitions are frequentl)' misunderstood.
What accounts for the puzzling void
and the persistent misreadings in
studies of such a great architect?
The nnswer lies in the complexity of
the subjects-in the nrlture of land-
scape, in the nature of Wright.
Landscapes are both given and
built; they arc phenomena of nature
and products of cultlll'c. Landscapes
comprise rivers, hills, trees, build-
ings, and rands. Scales and bound-
II
Wright's ancestors settled the Jones
Valley where he would later establish
Taliesill. By the time this photo was
taken ;11 1902, Wright had designed the
Romeo and Juliet \Vindmill, cenler, on
top of hill, and the second hui/din·"
foreground, for the Hillside Home
School, founded by his aunts.
In 1948 Wright supervises apprentices
workj"g the farmland at Taliesin All
photos courtesy Frank Lloyd Wn}!,ht
Archives, except where noted.
aries are fluid; a small garden is a
landscape; so is a valley. The hill
garden at Taliesin, with its grassy
mound, trees, walls, and steps, is a
landscape; so is the complex of
house, terraces, courtyards, and gar-
dens all built into and around rhe
hill, as is the larger Jones Valley,
with its buildings, roads, fields,
groves, streams, ponds, and hills.
Jones Valley, in (urn, is but a small
parr of the even larger landscape of
the Wisconsin River Valley, with irs
rivers, forests, towns, and highways.
Seen thus, landscapes and buildings
are continuous, not contiguous. A
landscape resists perception as an
object or even "'an expanse of
scenery seen by the eye in one view,"
a typical dictionary definition.
Landscapes are dynamic and evolv-
ing, nOt static, their surface the sum
of processes-water flow, plant
growth, human dwelling. Landscape
is the material contexr within which
we live: the habitats we humans
share with other organisms, the
places we shape to express our ideas
and values.
In modern usc, the words "land-
scape" and "nature" are often
employed interchangeably. But
nature is an idea, nOt a place; an
idea, moreover, for which many cul-
tures have no single name or notion.
Many critics have interpreted
\X'right's statements about nature in
light of the word's modern use, and
this has led them to mistake his rever-
ence for nature as deference to land-
scape. \Vright consistently capitalized
... ature," bur never "'Iandscape."
\X'right's understanding of nature
was grounded in his family's
Emersonian philosophYj he was
steeped from early childhood in
countless quotations, discussions,
and sermons drawn from Emerson's
writings. \Xlright's knowledge of
landscape came from experiencej
observing and shaping landscapes
were part of everyday life from the
time he plowed, planted, hoed, and
harvested fields as a boy, to when as
a man he terraced hillsides, planted
gardens and groves, dammed streams
to generate power and make lakes
and waterfalls, laid out contours for
plowing that traced curving land~
forms, and selected sites for Sunday
picnics. Such philosophy and experi-
ences were a central part of the life
he designed for and shared with
Taliesin's apprentices from 1932
until his death in 1959.
\Xlhat \'(fright said and wrote
about nature and landscape and
what he actually did were complex
and sometimes seem contradictory.
Without a clear-eyed comparison to 1.1
the built, his texts have served mostly
to confuse. \'(fere one dealing with
another architect, one might attribute
his apparent inconsistencies to a
Hillside Home School with the Hillside
superficial appreciation of nature Studio additioN appears i" the left fore-
and landscape. This was certainly grouNd iN this 1955 aerial photo of the
nOt the case with Wright. Given his Talies;N estate. The \ViscoNsin River
background, one must see \'(fright's can be seen in the distance, across
County Highway C.
II
landscapes as deliberate constructions.
Apparent contradictions between II
texts and works are clues to \'Vright's
priorities and inrenrions, to the evo-
lution of his ideas, or to ways that our
own assumptions and pcrceptions may
differ from his. \'Vright wrore many
texts over half a century (1894-1959)
for differelll purposes (self-expre>-
sian, self-promotion, self-justification,
reaching). \Vhile numerous rhemes
remained conStant throughout his
career, certain importanr ideas and
their applictltion to landscape design
developed over ti me.
The key to understanding \X!right's
approach to landscape design (includ-
ing his grand, unrealized projects of
rhe 1920sl lies in rhe landscapes
where he made his home and exerred views today, onc is struck by the (Opposite page) Water (eatures are an
continuou!i. inOuence for decades: the cOntrast between rough and smooth, mtegral part o( the landsCdpe at Taliesl1l
including this small/Jond outside o( the
Jones Valley of southern \'Visconsin by how profiles of landforms have
garden room o( the house. Photo ID jim
and the deserr of centrnl Arizona. He been rounded nnd ordered. The Wildemoll. (Abo,'e) The soarillg Birdwalk.
was born to the firsr and chose the landscape nppcars sculpted, and added to Taliesi/l il1 J 95.3, prot/ides a
second; the twO must be seen togeth- indeed it is. A grove of trees rounds dramatic view o( the valley and, look-
er, as he experienced them, the one off the angular top of Midway Ilill; ing back. a rare perspective on the
in contraSt to and clarifying rhe rows of curving crops accemuate the house itself Photo lD Paul Rocheleau.
(Bottom) In 1948 \Vright a"d his Ivi(e.
orher. Hundreds of phorographs landform. Gone are a hosr of build-
Olgiva",lO, stroll flear the Romeo and
spanning nearly sixty years docu~ ings and fences that once stood down Juliet W",dmill 011 the Taliesin estate.
ment his engagement with these in thc valley along the main road;
landscape. Dozen of quick ketch- only buildings designed by Wright transformed Jones Valley into a cele-
es and plans covered with scribbled himself remain in view along the bration of the landscape of south-
notes tire windows into his thinking western slopes. Just as eightecmh- western \X!isconsin and the cultural
about these places across the years. century English Inndowners embell- heritage of his mother and her family.
These im3ges enable us to assess ished their esrates-planting groves, Wri ht would certainly have agreed
what he actually did, year by year, to damming streams to form lakes, with landscape architect Humphrey
follow rhe dialogue between builr moving whole villages, building land- Repton (1752-1818) who asserted
landscapes and texts, to idemify the marks to guide the gazc-\'Vright that "to improve the scenery of a
principles that guided the work.

"Truth ill Beauty":

Ultifyillg Jones Valley

Any account of Frnnk Lloyd

\'Vright and landscape must begin
wirh the place where Wright'S auto-
biography begins and ends-rhe Jones
Val1ey, near Spring Green, \'Vi consin.
One cannOt overemphasize the signifi-
cance of this place for \'Vrighr. It wa his
home, school, laboratory, touchstone.
oll1p:ning views of the valley a
century or morc ago with the same

- 10-A
country, and ro display its native
beauties with advantage" is an art;
Repton's three principles-utility,
proportion, and unity-were among
\X1right's own.
The Lloyd Jones family arrived in
the valley in 1856. They found a
long valley enclosed by parallel,
lobed ridges of f1at·bedded limestone
and sandstone that formed smaller
valleys within the larger whole. A
stream flowed through the valley and
out into the broad floodplain of the
Wisconsin River. The Lloyd Jones
family planted crops and built a
homestead near where the Hillside
Home School buildings now stand.
From the home farm at Hillside, they
gradually expanded their holdings.
By the time Frank Lloyd Wright
spent summers 011 his Uncle James's
farm, in the 1870s and 1880s, his
grandparents, uncles, and auntS
owned and farmed much of the val-
ley. Wright began to shape the valley
through commissions for family
members well before he began
Taliesin in 1911: Unity Chapel
(1886); buildings for his aunts'
Hillside Home School (1887)(1902);
the Romeo and Juliet windmill
(1896); and Tan-y-deri (1907), the
house for his sister Jane.
From 1911, when his mother pur-
chased just over thirty-one acres for
. -=V"~
him, Wright quickly extended the
scope of his interventions to the land
itself: clearing trees and brush, plant-
ing gardens and groves, damming the
stream, and grading roads. He
expanded his holdings whenever POS4
sible, gradually consolidating many
small farms into one large estate. By
the time of his death in 1959, the
Taliesin Fellowship-the residential
community of architects and appren-
tices living at Taliesin and Taliesin
West-controlled about three tho1l 4
sand acres within and beyond the
valley. Over the course of half a cen-
tury, from 1911 to 1959, Wright
reshaped the valley to conform to his
ideals and those of his family, giving
form to their Emersonian philosophy
and their morro-unity. Wright said
in his "1932 autobiography that while
his family had stressed the "beauty
of truth," they had neglected the
"truth of beauty," and he set out to
redress that failure. The glory of
Taliesin as it ultimately evolved was
in the whole landscape of hills and
valleys, buildings and roads, fields,
gardens, and groves, the disparate
elements unified in a sweeping com-
position. By 1959, his words of 1932
were 110 longer an exaggeration: "I
saw it all, and planted it all."
Wright took an extraordinary
series of photographs of the valley
around 1900, a decade before he
began Taliesin. The photographs
presented his aunts' boarding school
to prospective students and their
families. Several show building inre·
riors, but most depict outdoor play
and rhe surrounding valley. These
images, when compared to a succes-
sion of photographs taken by others
from 1912 to 1959, form a bench-
mark from which to assess how he
changed the landscape. Two of them
are especially fine, including one of
the ponds below the Hillside Home
School where the composition is
reminiscent of Japanese prints and
Wright's own drawings of this time
71*
--
(fig. 10-A). The other is particularly
important, for it depicts the hill now
occupied by Taliesin, with Midway
Hill beyond (fig. I I-A). Wright shot
three views of this hill (actually the
end of a ridge), all from a vantage
nor visible from the school or even
from his family's lands. All other
views are closer to the school or
within its view. The perspective and
number of these images from 1900
demonstrate \'(Iright's interest in the
site ten years before its purchase. The
quality of the photograph repro-
duced here reveals the affinity
Wright felt for the place. The other
two images are useful as context and
_
•
Frank Lloyd Wright took these three
photographs around 1900. (Opposite
II
fJage) lO-A: A view of the skating pond
and jones Valley, looking east from
below Hillside Home School near
Ullity Chapel. Whi (x3) 47173. (Top
this page) II-A: A view of two hills
showi"g the future site of Taliesi". at
right. with Midway Hill in the back-
ground. from County Highway C near
the present entrance to Taliesin. Whi
(x3) 47/72. (Bot/alii this page) ll-B: A
view of the jones Valley, looking
northwest from near the curre"t inter-
section of Highway 23 and County
Highway T. Midway Hill is at far left,
Taliesill Hill at center. Whi (x3) 52391.
Three photos courtesy State Historical
Society of Wisconsin.
11 - p
11 - B
II I
points from which to asses~ subse-
quem change; rogerhcr they comprise
a pan Tama of the valley from south

I
ro nonh and show several buildings
that Wright later tOTC down Or
moved (the sourhwestern portion is
illustrated in fig.! I-B).
In 1900, there were a few lrees in i
rhe ridgetop pasture and second-
growth trees and shrubs on the steep, J
north- and east-facing slopes where
\Vrighr built his house, Taliesin, ten
years later. A soil survey of 1914
identified the soils on the property:
d,e most fertile klnd was on the val-
ley floor and luwe t lopes (now
uncler culrivnrion or underwater); the
high ground was rough and srony,
the weathered rock crumbly, the oil
highly erodible. The report recom-
mended cultivating rhe genrly slop-
ing, lower lnnd and warned that
most of the remaining land should be
Llsed a pasture or, where slopes were
steep, kept as woods. Wright ulti-
mately managed the landscape in
keeping with these recommcnda-
tions, particularly as he gaincd agri-
cultural experience (figs. 12-A, 12-B,
•
19-A, 19-B). He built his house on a
band of rough, srony land just helow •
the hilltop-the least fertile soil on
his property-and retained the
woods on steep slope below. Wright
also knew from experiencc how cold 12· B
the exposed ridgclOps were in wimer,
how hot the valley bonom could be
in summer, and how cool the breezy
upper slopes were, especially under
the shade of trees. That "no house
should ever be on any hill ... lit!
shuuld be of the hill" is a principle
well known to farmcrs. (Yet this
statement by Wright in his mnobiog-
raphy muSt be taken with a grain of
salt; Wright did build atop the hill
here-the tower and dining room-
and elsewhere.)

(rop) /2-A: trtped gardells of ,'egeta-

bles ami flowers along cOlllours near
HIllside, '9405. (Cellter) 12-13: Frallk
Lloyd \'(Iright's Farm Plall. 19205-305.
(Bottom) Midway Farm, 19705.
 From the edge of this ridge ncar
the end of Jones Valley, where
III
Wright built his home, thcrc were
swccping views of the Wisconsin
River, Tower Hill, and distant hills
across the broad, level floor of the
ancient river's flood plain. There
were also more enclosed views with-
in the mailer valley, up to Uncle
james's farm :lI1d rhe family chapel,
and back to Romeo and .Juliet above
Hillside. Windows framed these
prospects: the living room provided a
series of square views panning nOrlh-
northwest to south-southeast, from
Wisconsin River ro Unity Chapel; VieuJs o( the surroundiug laudscalJe
(rom inside the Taliesht house were art-
Wright's bedroom/study looked out
(ully c01llposed as scen il1 these three
toward Hillside, a view of rolling hills images taken ;1/ the 1990s (rom. above.
punctuated by Romeo and juliet. As \Vright's study and bedroom; le(t, the
Wright wrote in Architectural Forum loggia; and below, the garden rOOm.
in january 1938, "'Landscape seen Boltom photo © Jim Wildeman,
through the penings of the building
thus placed and proportioncd has
grcMcr charm than when sccn indcpen-
dCl1l of the architecture. Architecture
properly studied in relation to the
natural features surrounding it is a
great clarifier and developer of the
beauty of the landscape."
Wright shaped landscapes as
scenes framed by windows and
designcd buildings to be seen as part
of a landscape. Views of the sur-
rounding landscape from within
Taliesin house were as artfully com-
posed, as carefully selected as the
j::lpancse paintings and prims on the
walls. The clerestory windows in the
studio (now the office) frame a view
of the hilltop much like a long scroll
puncruated by slender, vertical mul-
lions: the outline of the knoll, the
tree in the tca circle, ::lncl the sky
beyond. In the loggia, the correspon-
dence between framed views of the
landscape outside and of j:lpanese
landscape paintings hung on the
walls inside is dcliber3te and explicir.
In 1914, the windows of the loggia
were set in frames whose top and
bottom were continuations of rhose
of rhe jap:lnese landscape paiming
on the adjacent wall. In 1925, the
II
(Left) 14-A, Hill gardell alld tea circle
with fields beyolld, 1911-12. Photo by
Henry Feumaml. (Center) 14-8: View
of hill gardell alld tea circle, 1934-37.
Photo courtesy State Historical Society
of Wisconsin, Howe Collec/ioll, \Vb;
(x3) 52627. (Bottom) 14-C View of
hill garden, late 19305. Photo courtesy
State Historical Society of Wisconsin,
Howe Collectioll, IVhi (x3) 52628.

windows of the loggia were replaced

by a series of long, narrow, glass
doors-like a Japanese screen-that
frame a view of the hills across the
valley: Bryn Mawr, Bryn Canol, and
Bryn Bach, all named by his grand-
parents. Wright fitted inner shutters
made from a lacquer screen of teak
with gold-colored glass of a rosy cast
like the gold backdrop of a Japanese
painting. The wood frames blocked
the balcony and roof overhang from
view when the doors were closed.
Art and life, landscape and building,
all merge here.

Taliesin-"shining brown-is an
apt name for this place where build-
ing, landscape, and life are united.
The English word "brow" links land-
form and human face; it originally
referred to eyebrow and only later to
landform. The brow of a hill, accord-
ing to Oxford English Dictionary, is
its "projecting edge . .. standing over
a precipice." At Taliesin, the build-
ings rest on a notch cut into the hill-
side and jut out over the steep slopes
below to form the brow. Perched ter-
races and garden "rooms" were a
distinctive part of Taliesin from the
outset, as was the entrance drive up a
long, steep slope. Originally, car-
riages and cars drove up the entrance
road-retaining wall and hill on the
left-through a porre-cochere, took a
sharp turn into an intimate, walled
court between buildings and hill-
the drive flanked by flowers-then
Out another gate into a square court- r
yard (fig. 15-A). When Wrighr larer •• ..
rerouted the entrance road downs-
lope of the buildings, the basic con- .J
figuration and character of the inner J-l4.- ~--
•• r- ----'
...
courts remained the same and per-
sists today; the farmyard was elabo- L-L:. _j i I • r"
'"
•

rated as a work court and an upper

moror court (fig.J5-B). The rea circle
and hill garden also appear in pho-
.. r-1
U •
• " .. .~
~

.,
rographs of Taliesin from 1912 and
early plans and drawings (fig. 14-A).
The prospects they afford are coun-
tJ •
'-
l
terpoints to the refuge provided by
the courts.
Many features of Taliesin's build-
ings and gardens resemble pho-
tographs, attributed to Wright, of
Fiesole, Italy, in 1910 and match his
reminiscences in An Autobiography: 15 - J
walking up "the hill road" with his
mistress, Mamah Borthwick Cheney,
into a narrow street bordered by
walls, walking in "the high-walled
garden rhar lay alongside rhe car-
tage," and sitting near a "little foun-
tain." One senses Wright strove to
build Mamah's life inro rhe gardens
at Taliesin as well as the house; the
suite of walled courtS, tea circle, and
hill garden embody memories of
their shorr, shared life.
otwithstanding the undeniable Jr-----.....;.;--
connections to \Vright's Italian expe-
rience, the courts and gardens at
,15: B
Taliesin bear a strong resemblance to
rhe work of Gertrude Jekyll in rhe
(Top) 15-A: Pia" of Taliesill by Frallk
vocabulary of flower borders, walls, she was young. This text must have
Lloyd Wright, ca. /9/2. (80ttolll) 15-8:
steps, and pools and the geometry of resonated deeply in Wright, who was Plan of Taliesin, ca. 1925. Both images
rheir structure (figs. 14-A, 15-A). photographing Jones Valley abour © Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
Wrighr was familiar wirh Jekyll's that time and perhaps thinking
work. He read Home and Garden in already of rhe home and garden he
1900, rhe year ir was published, and would build rhere.
said it was a book "that should be in Debts ro English and Italian gar-
every library," for it exemplified his dens and landscapes do not diminish
own approach to landscape design. \Vright's achievement at Taliesin.
Jekyll opened Home alld Cardell His genius lay in assimilating diverse
with a description of her newly built traditions, exploiting them for his
house. The site was near her child- own ends, blending them in a fresh
hood home, the house builr of "sand- expression that was undeniably his
stone that grows in our hills," irs oak own. As he said himself, "The New
beams cut from trees along a nearby in art is always formed out of the
land she remembered admiring when Old."
 The tea circle is a pivotal place
that negotiates a graceful transition
IlCtween the lower courts and the hill
garden. Like that of the COUTtS, the
form of the tea circle was established
early and has remained relatively
constam since 1912. One can see it
as an excdra, a scm i-circular niche
Wilh a bench, and appreciatc its rela-
rion to similar essays of steps, niches,
rind benches in Italian and English
gardens; perhaps there is also a bit of
the japancsc in the turn and turn
again movement as one mounts and
descends. Ir was sometimes referred
ro as the "council ring," suggesting a
link to jens jensen's council rings,
gatheting places defined by citcles of
litQnes around a campfire. In lhe tea
circle, instead of fire <It the center,
there was once "a spring or fountain
that welled up into a pool at the cen-
tcr of the circle." All of these influ-
ences may have come into play, but
\'Qright transformed thcm into this
wonderful place, so sh:ldy and breezy
on a hot summer's day, a delight to
the eye, to the body in movemem.
Taking tea in the tea circle became a
daily ritual at Taliesin from the
1930s if not before: "The four
o'clock 'ea bell brings the Fellowship
rogedler for a welcomed respite from
the day's work. Cooling snunds of
ice rattling in tall glasses fall on ear
as we climb the steps ro the circular
Stone bench the 'council ring. tOO
Wright knew how to enjoy a garden.
Unlike rhe rea circle and lower
courts, thc hill garden changed radi-
c<llly over time. It is completely mis-
le3ding to S3Y, as many critics have,
that Wright "preserved" the hill or
left it "undi turbed," for he trans-
formed it from rough pasture in a
grove of trees into an open, rounded
mound. In fact, it is nor really a hill-
top so much as rhe lowest end of a
long ridgeline (fig. I I-B). Wtight
Illade it seelll like the top of a hill by
concealing the higher portion of rhe
ridge Wilh ::\ wing of buildings and by
directing the gaze southward to
where the slope falls away beyond
the garden wall. By the late 1930s,
the profile of the hill garden was a
smooth curve covered with soft,
closely clipped grass (fig.14-C).
Originally, the ridge was flatter on
lOp, irs form less perfectly round; this
is clearly visible in a photograph of
1912, before the steps were built
from tca circle to "hillrop." Another
photograph from approximately the
srlme rime shows the hill garden as a 'I
grove of trees wirh rough grass
underneath-much like rhe pasture it
had been (fig. J4-A). Gradually the
trees disappeared, all remnants of the
srumps were removed, and the I ng
grass was replaced wirh turf. Wright
inserted cut stones into the turf-an
idealil.cd version of limestone
ledges-and rounded and smoothed
the landform into a representation,
an abstraction of a hilltop (fig. J4-B,
14-C). This was typical of how he
rounded off the valley as a whole
through a gradual simplification of
lhe given form. Ironically, like much
of the rest of the landscape Wright
graded and planted, the mounded
slope and ledges of the hill garden
have ofren been seen as naturally
 occurring rather than constructed.
Even many of lhe apprentices who II
arrived after the mid-1940s assumed
that the ledges and smooth terrain
had just always been there. Like the
browhouse, the hill gnrden embodies
a correspondence between human body

I and landform-a round mound, like a

breast or pregnam woman's swelling
). belly, enclosed by angular walls of
Stone and surmounrcd by d,c tower
with dovecote. Civen \Vrighr's belief in
the symbolism of fOfms-described
in his 1912 writings, "The Japanese
Prinr"-and ('he association of doves
with love and devotioll, it seems rca-
sonable to read the circular mound
3S feminine and the square enclosure
as masculine. It c~m be furrhcr inrer-
prctcd as a Illemorial to Mamah and
Mother, as represenring the fertility
of the valley embraced by the lover,
SOil, architcct.
Thc wall surrounding rhe hill gar·
dcn scts it off from rhe surrounding
landscape. There was a distinct dif-
ference between the two from at least
the 1920s; rough meadow of long

fOpposlte) The 1!l1I gardell at Taliesill

gras es grew right up m the wall and changed radically over time. \'(Inght
was juxtaposcd to the clipped grass trallsformed it (rom a rough pasture m
within the enclosure. Abstraction of a grolle o( trees mto all opell, roullded
mound. Photo lD Roger Straus 111.
landscape fe3lUrcs and juxtaposition
(rop) The wmgs of the house, Oil the
of the wild and the domesticatcd
right, aud the studio, au the left, wrap
werc stratcgies \'(fright frequcntly arolilld an illtimate gardell cOllrtyard.
employed laterj in facr they became I'hoto ro judilh Broil/ley. /Jolh photos
signal characteristics of his land· taken in the 1990s.
scapes from the 19205 Oil, including
the ul'1built projects of rhat decade,
such as Doheny Ranch and San
Marcos in the Dcscrt. lie built the
c3nrilevered tcrracc outside his bed·
room/study JUSt below the hilltop in
1937 (fig. IS-AI at about the same time
hc was also designing Fallingwatcr.
Here also, the built is juxtaposed to
the wild. The terrace jurs our over
the wooded slope below, affording
views over the lake, across the valley
ro rhe chapel and the farm, where he
used to stay as a boy, I1l1d back
beyond Midway across the hill to
II
(Below, top) IS-A: The terrace olttside
Wright's study is cantilevered over the
wild, llJooded landscape below. 1938-
51. Courtesy State Historical Society of
Wisconsin, Howe Collection, \Vhi (x3)
48219. (Bottom) 18-B: Cis/eTlls and
grid of gardens on slopes below
Taliesin, after 1914. Courtesy Frank
Lloyd \'(Iright Archives.
Romeo and Juliet and Tan-y-deri.
This elevated prospect gives one a
sense of comfortable conrrol, like
lord of the manor, over all one surveys.
In his autobiography Wright said
that Taliesin was planned as "a gar-
den and a farm behind a workshop
and a home. -, Outside the wall on
the southwest-facing slope, Wright
planted a large orchard and vine-
yard. These remain today, though
rhe vineyard is much smaller. The 5-
shaped stone retaining wall on the
southeast-facing slope once incorpo-
rated cisterns to irrigate the gardens
below, laid out in a grid; they are
depicted in a photograph and on
drawings of abour 1912 (figs. IS-A,
18-B). Apparently rhe gridded gar-
dens were designed to present a col-
orful pattern, for people reportedly
drove by just to look at them. This
was a poor location for gardens and
for such a layout; the slope was steep
and rhe soil roo erodible. The grid-
ded gardens soon disappeared and
were replaced by grass and trees; the
cisterns remain (although they were
no longer operative by the late
1930s). Grapevines and vegetable
gardens were planted later in long,
srraight rows more or less aligned
along the cOntours (figs. 12-B, 19-B).
Vegetable and flower gardens were
moved finally ro a field near Hillside,
where crops and flowers were plant-
ed in colorful, curving bands like
conrour lines (fig. 12-A). By rhe lare
1930s Wright employed contour
plowing for the farm fields. This
must have appealed to him as a way
to fuse patterns of work and land-
forms, for he celebrated the way
agricultural labor shaped rhe land:
"The entire field is become a linear
parrern-a plan of routine. Work."
According ro Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer,
director of the Frank Lloyd Wright
Archives, Wright had the contoured
plow lines recalibrated every few
years, and nor just for aesthetic rea-
sons; he was adamant about nor los-
ing soil. \'V'henever the ground was
regraded, as around the newly built
upper dam in 1947, strips of sad
were cut from the pasture and laid
out along the graded slopes, and then
bare soil in between was seeded with
grass. Cornelia Brierly, an early
Wrighr apprentice, recalls that professors
from the University of Wisconsin
brought their students to see
\'V'right's contour planting. "He laid
it all out; it was beautiful," she said.
The lower hills in the valley are
generally rounded and rolling.
Where the rock crops out, at
Midway, for example, the hills tend
ro be more ragged. This is quite clear
in winter; as the sun moves behind
Midway, light comes through the
trees and silhouettes their branches,
revealing the ground plane as a pyra-
midal mass. Wrighr rounded off
J\Ilidway Hill by permitting trees ro
grow up on the side facing Taliesin
in the 1950s. The result was a con-
vex form, in contrast to the original,
straighter slopes, which were eroded
and rocky; he left open the rounder
form facing Hillside and behind.
JUSt above Midway, the croplines
and the road curve with the land-
form.
Various plans depict the landscape
as it existed and as \Vright envi-
sioned it might be: "Garden planning
at Taliesin is done in the same way
as building planning. Using a large
map of rhe farm and a box of col-
ored pencils, the entire garden layout
is planted." Successive site plans
delineate fields and allocate crops
among them; Wright reviewed and
revised rhe plans periodically. An
early plan, published in 1913, fea-
rures a «water garden," orchards,
vineyard, reservoir, and the gridded
gardens. Notes on this plan show
that \Vright conceived plantations on
a grand scale: "1000 barbery (1/3
dwarf), 1000 hawrhornes, 1000
plums (assorted), 100 weeping wil- (Images on this page ©Frauk Lloyd
lows, 500 rosa rugosa, 500 white sized tree," «tear down old school," Wright Foundation.) The buildings, roads,
pines." Wright later used a survey of "zinnias everywhere ... transplant alld fields depicted ill Wright's 1920s-
30s FARM PLAN drawillg (fig. 12-8)
1920 as a base for several plans rhar wild grape vines abollt stone-work
relate closely to photographs from the
seem to fall roughly into three time and chimneys ... hollyhocks around 1920s alld early 1930s (figs. 19-A, 19-8).
periods: 1920s-30s, 1930s-40s, walls and fences." A plan from the The photograph in figure 19-A shows
I940s-50s (fig. 12-B). 1940s-50s shows rhe shores of rhe the Taliesin landscape in the 1920s
Wirh rhe arrival in 1932 of rhe upper lake, an expanded lower lake, after the entrance road from Rot/te 23
was built; curved fields bounded by
first apprentices, \'<'right had the and new construction at Midway
fences match the shapes on the plan.
labor force to work on an expanded including the row of triangular pig- The plan also shows the two enormous
scale commensurate with his vision. houses along "Pork Avenue." areas 011 the hillside behind Taliesil1
Later plans are covered with notes Reviewing these plans and pho- planted in the long, straight lines of the
on what existed ("Quack grass patch tOgraphs, reading Wright's descrip- vil1l!)'ard (shown with crosses) and a sin-
covered up with tar paper") and tions of farming activities, one can- gle vegetable or fruit-asparagus,
oniol1s, raspberries (shown as colored
what could be, drawn changes to not help but wonder if there has ever lines). The rows are visible in the aerial
roads, and written instructions been a farmer quite like Frank Lloyd photograph (fig. 19-8), as are the
regarding things to do (<<take out Wrighr. In facr, Wrighr had a role rOllNded shapes of fields.
fence, use this fence elsewhere," model very close to home. His Uncle
"clear away brush leaving only good- Jenkin Lloyd Jones had long pursued
:l similar approach to farming and
landscape lesign on his summer
retreat down the road from Taliesin
at Tower Hill. From 1895 to 1915,
Uncle Jenkin delivered a series of ser-
mons on topics such as plowing,
sowing, weeding, reaping, tree pl:1nr-
ing, reforestation, road making, ::Ind
b~lrn building, which he collected
under the tide "The Gospel of the
Farm." The language of the sermons
bears a marked resemhlance to
Wright's discussion of the same top-
ics in his autobiography. Jenkin calls
the cow "a miniMer of the bcauriful
as well as the useful" and rcminds
his readers of the "famous" dictum:
"Treat your cow as though she were
a lady." The pasture ~hown on
Taliesin farm pl3ns seems t3ilored to
illustrate Jenkin's sermon: a long
broad promenade for horses and
cows in curvilinear spaces betwcen
fields, winding around the hill along
hlke 3nd stream, where the animals
formed "3 glittering decoration of
the fields and meadows as they
moved."
\'(fright drew and redrew alterna-
tive road alignments on plans and
aerial photos. The entrance drive
was changed several times to match
reconstruction of the house; the one
constant was falling water as parr of
the entry sequence. When the main
Cntrance was changed again from
Route C to Route 23 in nbout 1937,
Wright insistcd that everyone lise it:
"We illl had to come in thilt wny,"
recoiled John deKoven Hill, nn enrly
apprentice. Wright insisted that the
roadsides be carefully maintained.
His attention to the alignment and
appearance of the roads reflected his
fascination with automobiles and
movement and his concerns for
revealing landform and shaping a
bcautiful scene.... Mr. Wrighr lovcd
ro operate the road grader," said
Brierly. "It was terribly bumpy,
smoothing out the rllts and gravel.
Mrs. Wright didn't like him to, but
he did anyway."
Over the course of many years, \Xlright
cOllstmcted (I series of dams to creole
Photo credits: O!Jposite. waterfall,
photo <D Judith Bromley,
II
ponds and fallillg water at Taliesil1,
The 111ain entrauce road, seell behind Center alld bOllam, photos eEl Roger
the birdwalk ill the boltom image, Stralls Ill, Left. photo by Bruce Brooks
passes a waterfall. opposite page, The Pfeiffer, collrtes)' I'rallk Llo)'d Wright
photo in the center of this page was Archillcs.
laken from the valley between Taliesil/
and MidwtlY Farm, The photo of
Wright was taken in the J 950s, the
other photos were taken iN 1998.
ED
 Wright had a fascination and an early dam, low and narrow; later shape the views from his windows Ell
much experience with dams, ponds, dams, higher and broader; a sheet of and from the roads approaching
and falling water. The dam below water flowing smoothly over a Taliesin. He bought property when-
Taliesin was always a significant fea- curved lip into the water below; a ever he could, then destroyed the
rure and served several functions. cascade splashing over stepped rocks; existing structures and replanted the
Wright noted in his autobiography a combination of cascade on one side land. "He burned a tavern, and peo-
that the dam raised "the water in the and sheet flow over the main fall. ple were furious!" Brierly recalled.
Valley to within sight of Taliesin," Wright explored dams for years before Wright bought the pig farm on the
creating a lake that mirrored the the culmination of building/waterfall corner of Routes C and 23, tore
clouds and bounced light ftom the at Fallingwater in 1936. In his plans down the buildings, and installed a
sky back up ro the windows of the for the Strong automobile objective vast field of red petunias in the trian-
house. Watet from below the falls of 1924-25, he included a dam with gular intersection. He designed a
was sent "by hydraulic ram, up to a a smooth sheet of water falling from snack bar overlooking the \Visconsin
big stone reservoir built into the its lip (strikingly similar to the water- River that could be reached by an
highet hill, just behind and beyond fall in the famous drawing of
the hilltop garden, to come down Fallingwater), even though it would
have entailed pumping water to the Frank Lloyd Wright pallses (or a photo
again into the fountains and go on
all the terrace outside the loggia in
down to the vegetable gardens on the hilltop site. 1955. The road seen in tbe background
slopes below the house." Into the Wright gradually enlarged his leads to Midway Farm al1d 011 to
1940s, water falling over the dam estate, which enabled him to further Hillside Home School. Pboto by John
powered the generator that produced Engstead.
electricity for the Taliesin complex; a
generator house once sat alongside
the dam. Dam and waterfall were
among the first things visitors saw as
they turned off the road and pro-
ceeded through the gate and up the
hill to the house. In 1947 anothet
dam was constructed upstream from
the first to form an upper lake below
Midway; a road led through the gate
on Route 23 and over a bridge below
the waterfall over the upper dam.
The lakes and dams required con-
stant maintenance and frequent
draining, regrading, and rebuilding.
The water features evolved from
meandering pools in the early water
garden to two lakes after the upper
dam was built in 1947. Over the
years, Wright regraded and reshaped
the shorelines and lake bottoms (see
the lake under reconstruction in fig.
19-B). He also built and tebuilt the
lower dam. Many versions are
depicted in snapshots and postcards:

(Opposite) Water from the dam pow-

ered a generator that produced electric·
ity for the Taliesi" complex unti/the
1940s. This 1925 photo shows the
hydro house constructed to house the
generator. Photo courtesy Frank Lloyd
\Vright Archives.
overpass (Taliesin Viaduct) on horse-
back or on foof. B)' the early 1950s,
the Taliesin property extended all the
way down Route 23 ~t1ong the
\Visconsin River ro the intersection
of Route 14; Wrighr plamed rhree
pine groves, one at each poilU of the
huge triangle at the intersection and
considered installing a sign that read
"Taliesin Parkway-3 miles."
Wright may havc been sentimental
about the valley where his family set-
tled, bur he held no such feelings for
the structures they built. In 1933 he
ordered apprentices to tcar down the
barn of the Hillside Home School
and salvagc the materials for reuse;
he issued the same instructions near-
ly twenty years latcr. when he had
them dismantle the 1887 Ililiside
Home School building.
\Vrighr intended that Taliesin be
"'self-sustaining if nor self-sufficient
. . . its own light-plant, fuel yard,
transportation and warer system,"
providing "shelter, food, clothes, and
CVCIl entertainment." A principal
tenet of the Taliesin Fellowship was
learning through doing, :lnd appren-
tices spent hours each drly working
on the estate: they grew food, made
wine, cooked, cut firewood, built
and rebuilt trucrures and gardens.
Kevin Lynch, who later became a
theorist of urban design and plan-
ning, de cribed his experience while
at Taliesin in 1937: "The new
apprentice mUSI learn how to handle
a mil bundle of cornstalks, or how to
cur a green oak plank. or how to
translate a drawing for a huilding, or
how to lay plaster, or even Ihe most
efficient method of scraping oatmeal
from a pot ... It is the attempt ro
grasp the new ideal of hard work, of
creative activity, of 'learning by
doing,' of enthusiastic cooperation in
solving common problems, that
makes the life f the new apprentice
so full and sO fascinaling here."
The ideal of suslainabiliry at
Taliesin was never fully realized
there; despite \Vright'~ aversion to
cities, it was urban activities and
populations (for example, fees for
lectures and archirccUiral commissions)
that always supported TaJiesin. As
the Fellowship grew, winter posed 311
additiol131 ch311ellge to sust3in3bility
-fuel for ,11 rhe firep,"ccs ,nd boil-
ers rh31 he3tcd the residences and
studio call1e from the woods. In
1934 3pprcnrice Eugene Masselink
wrOte that clining thc firewood l1CC-
css3ry to heat the buildings and stu-
dio all wintcr threatened ro obliter3rc
the woods 3round Taliesin. Early
thar summcr, Wright announced the
next winter would be spcnr in
Arizona.
The Fall issue of the QUARTERLY
will continue this essay with the
(OCIIS OU TaliesiN \Vest and a summary
of \Vright's prillciples of lalldscape
design.
.-
Anue \VIJlston Spirn is Pro(essor o(
LaNdscape Architecture and Regional ED
PlanniNg at the MassacIJusetts
Illstitute of Teclmology. This article
is 011 excerpt (r01l1 her cIJapter in
Fronk Lloyd Wright: Designs for ,n
American Londscape. 1922- I 932.
edited by David De LOllg (Harry N.
Abra1l1s and Canadiau eutre (or
Architecture, 1996).
\visconsi" wi/ltcrs posed a series o(
challe1lges (or Wright and the Ta!iesin
Fellowship. By 1934 ,IJere was COllcem
that clI/I;ng enollgh (ire wood to heal
the buildl1lgs would obliterate the
woods arol/lld TaJieslII. III (act, the
woods rcma", IIItact as see" III tbis
1998 photo o( the Talu!sm estate.
Photo I[) Roger tralls III.